


Know Your Enemy

by archwrites (Arch)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon, Telepathy, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:19:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arch/pseuds/archwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dumbledore reconnoiters before fighting Grindelwald. Written before <em>Deathly Hallows</em> and therefore decidedly not canon-compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know Your Enemy

>   
> _The Nibelungen, a fierce race of dwarves believed by Muggles to be a myth, have strongholds in the Black Forest and along the Rhine. According to legend, their greatest treasure lies hidden beneath the treacherous Lorelei, though what that treasure is remains a mystery. […] The magical powers of the Nibelungen are limited to Legilimency. Yet because that is their primary means of communication, the fighting force of the Nibelungen is nigh unstoppable._ \-- from The History of German Magic, by Professor Augustus Eisenstein (Zürich, 1942).

Although the Muggles marching toward Dumbledore were covered in filth, he could still recognize their uniforms. However, a hundred muddy Nazis worried him far less than did the dozen small, cloaked figures that they escorted. _So it is true_, he thought. _Grindelwald has the Nibelungen._ A cold frisson of dread rippled through his body as he waited for them to pass, and he tried to fold his long limbs closer to his body. He didn't know whether even his complex invisibility charms would deflect the eyes of a Nibelung, and he hoped he wasn't too tired and cold to Occlude them.

He waited for their backs to retreat eastward before he rose and resumed his invisible westward trek. The Rhine rushed cold and perilous ahead of him, the wind howling around deceptively rounded cliffs that bristled with the crenellations and turrets of castles that had once ruled the river. Even ravaged by war, the countryside here still displayed an ancient and formidable beauty. The treacherous rocks at this bend in the Rhine had been claiming lives for thousands of years, and the enormous cliff Dumbledore was climbing, the Lorelei, had inspired a long mythology of deception, seduction, and death. Dozens of legends haunted the Lorelei, but Dumbledore believed that Grindelwald was only interested in one: the story of the legendary _Nibelungenschatz_, lost at the base of the cliff. According to Muggle legend, the treasure was a hoard of gold and jewels, the wealth of a kingdom. But both Grindelwald and Dumbledore knew that the bloodstained treasure of the Nibelung dwarves was far more likely to be a devastating weapon than a pile of plunder.

Not for the first time, Dumbledore wished his broomstick hadn't been destroyed by an angry Bavarian giant. He could have flown up to scout out the summit of the Lorelei; he could have examined the faces of the cliff walls for caves or crevices or secret entrances; he could have executed a series of daring and jaunty heroics without having to drag his sodden robes through six inches of mud. But he also knew that if he had been flying, he would have missed the clue that had led him here in the first place, the half-buried runic stone that had tripped him as soon as he had Apparated away from the Bavarian giant.

So he kept trudging through the mud as cheerfully as possible, searching for the other runic stone that would direct him to the next stage of his quest. He suspected that it would probably be hidden somewhere atop the Lorelei, probably in a most inaccessible place, guarded by a number of unpleasant creatures.

\---

As he reached the summit, he discovered that he was correct about the unpleasant creatures, though he had rather hoped for something less sentient, or at least more susceptible to bribes. Approximately fifty Nibelungen crowded around a thicket of holly, their axes glinting and flashing in the pale winter sunlight. Some were mounted on black hippogriffs that tossed their heads and pawed the ground restlessly. As he watched, one particularly fierce-looking Nibelung withdrew an enormous horn and sounded a tremendous blast, which echoed eerily off the opposing cliffs across the river. At this signal, a dozen of the mounted dwarves took off and flew eastward, right over Dumbledore's head; another dozen began to fell the holly, and a third dozen quickly stripped leaves and branches so that the fourth dozen could begin constructing something, though he couldn't see what. The dwarves moved efficiently and silently, which was to be expected, he supposed, since they needed no voices to communicate.

Dumbledore had the advantage, though; they weren't aware of his presence, and they were so absorbed in their tasks that he only had to deflect the questing mental gaze of the few sentries that were posted around the perimeter. He focused on emptying his mind as he moved silently toward the easternmost guard. This would be the most demanding Occlumency of his life; he needed not only to prevent the Nibelungen from delving into his mind, but also to efface his mind completely from their phrenic landscape as effectively as the invisibility charms effaced his body from the physical one -- and, he thought with no little trepidation, he would need to sustain this for days.

Slowly, cautiously, he edged past the sentry, his wand at the ready. A faint whisper of doubt formed in a dim corner of his mind, but he quickly banished it. Fear would punch holes in his mental defenses big enough for even that Bavarian giant to sense.

The closer he came to the dwarves, the tighter he had to clutch his mental shield. He could feel them, tendrils of murmuring thought coiling softly all around him like caresses. Their language was the multidimensional language of Legilimency, thoughts made richer and less decipherable by emotions tangling with the memory of sights and sounds and smells. It was strangely seductive, he thought; he wanted to learn more, to immerse himself in this occult language that transcended words altogether.

His progress had stopped. He stood in the midst of the bustling Nibelungen, yearning for the touch of one of those marvelous minds.

When it came, it was not a gentle caress. It scorched, it screamed _Danger! Intruder!_, and it turned all the rest of the coiling tendrils into a solid, fiery heat aimed at burning through his defenses.

Dumbledore jolted back to his senses and forced the mental shield back into place. They knew he was there, but they still didn't know where; the sentries were scanning the woods, and the others were looking outward. They didn't realize he was already inside the perimeter. He moved swiftly among them, ever closer to the thing they were building.

And then horns sounded out of the east. Grindelwald had arrived.

\---

An hour later, Dumbledore was sitting in a tree, trying to conserve energy so that he could keep practicing Occlumency against the dwarves. Grindelwald himself, the most feared Dark wizard for a hundred years, proved to be a short, stout, balding man who wore ill-fitting robes and what appeared to be a Muggle toupee, which kept slipping to one side as he delivered a dry and uncharismatic speech to his minions. Dumbledore hadn't expected the century's most fearsome evil mastermind to look quite so boring, but he had to acknowledge the brilliance of such an appearance. Who would look at this bland, average figure and suspect that he was plotting mass genocide against every Muggle on the planet?

Dumbledore also wished he were more familiar with Grindelwald's Bavarian dialect. All he had gathered from the speech was that Grindelwald held the Nibelungen in some kind of magical thrall. Still, this was remarkably good news; Dumbledore had thought that the dwarves had joined Grindelwald willingly. Now he could focus on how to persuade them to revolt against the wizard who wanted to steal their great treasure.

Grindelwald finally finished his speech. The Nibelungen clapped politely. Grindelwald lit one of them on fire, and the claps stopped abruptly, then turned into hoarse cheers that still did not manage to drown out the screams of their dying comrade.

\---

The next day, one of the Nibelungen managed to throw off the spell that had bound him to Grindelwald. In response, the Dark Lord tied him to a tree and slowly flayed his skin. By the time Grindelwald finally bellowed "Avada kedavra," Dumbledore had searched the entire camp, figured out which security charms Grindelwald was using for his tent, and picked the magical locks that fastened his enormous ebony trunk. It held only a crude holly swastika. Dumbledore went outside, fashioned another, and swapped the two.

As he held Grindelwald's swastika, he was startled by silence. It seemed that the talisman shielded his mind from the telepathic gaze of the Nibelungen. He almost wept with relief.

\---

The following day, Dumbledore stalked Grindelwald's two closest henchmen, Professor Augustus Eisenstein of Durmstrang and Taurus Yaxley, who had been at Hogwarts with Dumbledore. They usually stuck close to their lord's side, but while Grindelwald was occupied with some arcane ritual in his tent, they had slunk off to conspire in the woods.

"But what does he want to do with it?" whispered Eisenstein. "Surely the most prudent thing would be to hide it."

"Indeed," replied Yaxley. "But the Dark Lord believes that he can use the object to enhance his power over the treasure, and over the Nibelungen, too." He lowered his voice even further, so that Dumbledore had to move uncomfortably close to hear. "They're growing restive, ever since the Dark Lord started killing them. Can't you feel them, trying to get into your mind? They never did that before yesterday. If things continue at this snail's pace, they may well manage to break free."

"Do they know about the object?"

Yaxley shook his head.

"You're certain? The Dark Lord created it right before their eyes."

"Quite certain. I don't think they've ever even heard of a Hor--"

"Do not say it!" interrupted Eisenstein, glancing around worriedly.

"Well, in any case, they don't know about objects like this. They couldn't recognize what he was doing, and besides, they were too distracted by the death of the rebel."

"Once the Dark Lord acquires the treasure and combines it with the object, no one will be able to stand against him."

"So we must hope that the Nibelungen remain docile until they have retrieved their treasure for us."

They had already started walking away, but Dumbledore didn't follow. Instead, he stood stunned in the gloaming.

Grindelwald had created a Horcrux.

This battle was going to be even more difficult than anyone had ever suspected.

**Author's Note:**

> The _Nibelungenlied_ is a classic saga of medieval German literature. The parts about the treasure and the Lorelei are true; the parts about the dwarves are basically invented (though Wagner did suggest that the Nibelungen were dwarves, they're probably actually just a line descended from the kings of Burgundy).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Some Fading Glimmer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10826) by [archwrites (Arch)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arch/pseuds/archwrites)




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